Blockquotes in feed
I hear this on and off about how my plugin fails to show-up the credit cite/title when the post is viewed in a feed reader or a feed service (like Bloglines). So, I have an observation to make.
Most feed readers, if not all, do not process javascripts/ecmascripts, and are ignored by the feed client/service. Since the Blockquote plugin uses javascript only to visually display (the credits already fed in the blockquote markup), it is essentially cosmetic. So let me try and kill two birds with one stone here.
One: That it is okay if the cosmetic appearence of title/link, meant for humans to read, is wrapped in a div, instead of cite below the quotation. Semantically speaking, it is aleady taken care of in the blockquote markup. For example, if you disable scripting in your browser, you won’t see the (cosmetic) citation and or link, but it still exists in the blockquote markup and it is still semantically correct.
Two: Blockquotes citation/title are viewable via the tooltip, irrespective of whether the scripting is enabled (in the browser) or not. And that these are viewable as a tooltip (hover over the blockquote for a second and you’ll see the title text) in both the browser and in feed readers (or in feed services).
I hope that clears the air.
Update: Having said that, I would like to iterate that there’s room for improving the tooltip feature inherently in browsers and feed readers. See my post Clarity of links with regards to enhancing the tooltip feature (within browser, by browser makers).
Cliche (update) 2: Egad, for a line of plugin code, I never thought I’d end up writing two pages clarifying it 
.
Personally I wasn’t bothered by the feed aspect of the plugin. I find that if you’re reading something by feed then you’ve accepted that you’re not really getting everything as-is from the source. It’s more a limitation of current feed technologies.
Yes, some browsers will have scripting disabled, but that’s really another issue. I meant to write a very informal, friendly email to see whether or not you would agree that the
citetag would be more appropriate for a citation—instead of putting content in adiv.It would seem logical to make a comestic citation into a semantic one. Or perhaps have I misunderstood the purpose of the
citetag?Egad, sorry to have been such a thorn in your side.
3 years agoHi Scott: You misunderstand me, and no, I am not scorning you (at all). My profound apologies, if I come across that way (in my post).
Your effort, particularly, in getting under the hood and understanding is commendable. Most do not even bother to think semantically. I honestly appreciate that. In fact, I began looking the up the code myself after I received your email, and a mod by another user, into thinking if I had missed something.
My point was only this: that both methods are fine. I am saying it is okay (not must or should) to display the attribution text in a div rather than a cite, simply because here
3 years agocitein ablockquoteis an attribute (and a child element of blockquote), as against being the element itself in a typical sentence (and that cite would already been defined in blockquote, otherwise you wouldn’t see it in the first place.)